Willamette Meteorite 2000

On this web page, you'll find a reprint of an article
from the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde's newspaper, Smoke
Signals, about their claim on the Willamette
Meteorite and an essay about the Meteorite's newest home in New
York's Museum of Natural History. At the
end of this page, a newspaper article and a Museum announcement from June 2000
explain the settlement
reached between the tribe and the New York
museum. For background on the Meteorite go to:

Who
Owns a Meteorite? In 1990, Oregon schoolchildren
attempted to bring the Willamette Meteorite home in a campaign that went all
the way to the US Congress.

Yet Another Journey for the Willamette Meteorite?

In early September 1999, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde launched a
campaign for the return of the Willamette Meteorite from New York, basing their
claim on the Native American Graves Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). This Act--made
law in 1990 and designed to restore sacred items to the various tribes--requires
the return of cemetery and religious objects as well as human remains. In early
December 1999, the city council of West Linn voted to support the Tribes' effort
to restore the Meteorite to Oregon and offered to maintain it at a spot near
its original location in the city.

Meanwhile New York's Museum of Natural History plans to complete a $210 million
renovation in February 2000. The Willamette Meteorite--valued by visitors and
scholars for its scientific and educational significance--will have a prominent
display in the new Hall of the Universe. A decision about ownership--a resolution
of conflicting cultural, political, scientific and legal issues--will not be
easy. In the year 2000, the subject of the Willamette Meteorite may again go
to court.

On September 15, Ryan and Adrienne Heavy Head, repatriation consultants to
the Grand Ronde Tribe, submitted a claim to the American Museum of Natural History
asking for the return of a meteorite taken from Oregon.

Up until the early 1900's, the meteorite was situated in the vicinity of present-day
West Linn. The Clackamas Tribe called the meteorite "tomanowos." The stone belonged
to the Native doctors of the Clackamas Tribe who told the people how it came
from the moon. Native children, approaching adolescence, were often sent by
their families to visit the tomanowos in the dark of night. Young warriors bathed
their faces in the water which collected in caverns carved into the surface
of the stone. The water had special healing properties and was used by Native
doctors to cure friends and relatives.

After the 1855 treaties, most Native families living in the Willamette Valley
came to live in Grand Ronde, including the Clackamas Tribe. By the 1870's, with
a tight government ban on traditional Native American religious practices, the
Clackamas people went no more to the site of tomanowos.

Kalapuya Elder William Hartless once told about the many strong spirit power
sources which were available to Native people living in I the Pacific Northwest.
According to William Hartless, these strong spirit beings fled to the ocean
after the arrival of the Europeans and by the time of his interview, they came
no more to the people at Grand Ronde.

It would seem, in the case of the Oregon meteorite, the Clackamas tomanowos
did not flee. It was taken from Oregon after it was sold by Oregon Iron and
Steel for $20,600 to a wealthy woman from New York. Later, she donated it to
the American Museum of Natural History where it still remains.

Empowered under the language of the Native American Graves and Repatriation
Act (NAGPRA), the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde submitted a claim to the
American Museum of Natural History a few weeks ago calling for the release of
the meteorite and the return of the tomanowos to the Grand Ronde community.

However, much of the legal argument pertinent to this claim must still be addressed.
In that respect, the Grand Ronde Cultural Resource staff will be intenriewing
Elders and other knowledgeable persons in an attempt to accumulate any and all
information which might be useful toward helping the museum understand why tribal
people need the meteorite to return to its home.

To expedite the issue, the American Museum has requested that this information
gathering process be completed no later than November 30.

As many Native people from Oregon and Southern Washington came to the Willamette
Valley, on occasion, for trade and ·healing purposes, the staff at Grand Ronde
is calling for assistance from anyone who may have information pertaining to
the Clackamas tomanowos.

Telephone or in-person interviews can be scheduled with Ryan and Adrienne Heavy
Head, NAGPRA representatives for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. they
can be reached by phone at (503) 393-7255, or by e-mail at hvyhead@cyberis.net.

At its home far away from Oregon, in New York's American Museum of Natural
History, the Willamette Meteorite is displayed to thousands of people each year.
School-bus loads of children join the hundreds of tourists and the scores of
scientists visiting the Museum, one of New York's prime attractions. By February
2000, a seven-story, 333,500-square- foot renovation at the Museum will surround
the Meteorite.

This $210 million project--called the Rose Center for Earth and Space--will
include a new, and spectacular, [Hayden] Planetarium plus multi-media displays
at the Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth and the Cullman Hall of the Universe.
"The dazzling centerpiece of the Rose Center for Earth and Space, which will

transform the entire north side of the Museum on West 81st Street, is an 87-foot
sphere that appears to float within a 95-foot high glass walled cube." The sphere
houses the new Planetarium, recreated as a virtual reality simulator, and the
multi-sensory Big Bang Theater. Beneath the sphere, a sloping walkway (called
the Cosmic Pathway) chronicles the 13 billion years of cosmic evolution after
the Big Bang and leads down to the Hall of the Universe on the ground floor.

The Hall of the Universe--the Willamette Meteorite's newest home--is designed
to "illuminate the stunning discoveries of astrophysics" with "kinetic sculptures,
computer visualizations, [and] dramatic projected images". Near the Meteorite,
visitors can examine a self-sustaining habitat, the Ecosphere, to imagine conditions
necessary for life in space, and view the AstroBulletin, a log of current space
missions with up-to-date news and images from space. Museum-goers are invited
to actually touch a visitor from beyond the Earth, the Willamette Meteorite,
a 32,000-pound remnant of the birth of the Solar System.

The American Museum of Natural History and the Confederated
Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon Sign Historic
Agreement Maintaining Willamette Meteorite
at Museum, Recognizing the Tribe's Spiritual Relationship to the Meteorite

Museum Also Establishes Internship Program for Native American Young People

From the newspaper, The Sun (Serving the West Valley--Sheridan, Willamina,
and Grand Ronde):